A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



" To the solid ground 

 Of Nature trusts the mind "uhich builds for aye. 



-Wordsworth. 



TEXT-BOOKS OF PSYCHOLOGY. 

 The Human Mi?id : a Text-book of Psychology. By 



James Sully, M.A., LL.D. Two Vols. (London : 



Longmans, 1892.) 

 Hand-book of Psychology : Feeling and Will. By James 



Mark Baldwin, M.A., Ph.D. (London : Macmillan, 



1891.) 

 Texi-book of Psychology. By William James. (London: 



Macmillan, 1892.) 



IN his treatise on the " Human Mind," Mr. Sully has 

 not attempted to supplant, but rather to supplement, 

 his own admirable " Outlines of Psychology." The 

 method in the two works is the same, and the arrange- 

 ment of the subject-matter, though it differs slightly in 

 some details, is, on the whole, essentially and in prin- 

 'ciple similar. A chapter has been added on the physical 

 basis of mental life, dealing briefly with the nervous 

 system and with neuro-psychical correlations. But the 

 author wisely refers his readers to text-books of physio- 

 logy or to manuals of physiological psychology for a full 

 treatment of these matters. He also gives an adequate 

 account of the recent experimental researches on the 

 nature and conditions of some of the simpler responsive 

 activities, but is not blind to the difficulties and uncer- 

 tainties of this so-called experimental psychology. 



It is well known that Mr. Sully lays great stress on the 

 genetic method in psychology. 



" It is evident," he says, "that we require a knowledge 

 of these psychical elements [reached by analysis] and of 

 the laws of their combination, in order to account for the 

 complex products of the mature human consciousness. 

 Now, the perfect account of a thing means the history 

 of that thing from its first crude to its completed form. 

 When the psychologist has succeeded by analysis, aided 

 by objective observation and hypothesis, in obtaining 

 the requisite data, be proceeds to reconstruct the course 

 of psychical development." 



From the standpoint of biology and evolution, this 

 genetic aspect of psychology is of especial importance, 

 NO. I 175, VOL. 46] 



and we cannot be too grateful to Mr. Sully for his able, 

 clear-headed, and, on the whole, cautious presentation of 

 this view of the matter. But it is one which, as Mr. 

 Sully himself well knows, is of peculiar difficulty. Few 

 of us remember anything of the genesis of our modes of 

 psychological procedure in the early days of our life ; and 

 when we do remember scraps here and there, we are only 

 too apt to interpret theVn in terms of our adult procedure, 

 with which we are so much more familiar. It is, more- 

 over, well nigh impossible for the psychologist to realize 

 the nature of the psychical processes of the child, so that 

 infant psychology is a field wherein we may suppose much 

 and can prove little. Mr. Sully again and again appeals 

 to the supposititious child. 



'• The child, for example," he says, " begins to note 

 that some varieties of living things, e.g. flies or birds, 

 die. He then compares these results, and, extracting 

 the common relation, finds his way to the more compre- 

 hensive generalization, * All animals die.' Later on he 

 compares this result with what he has observed of flower- 

 ing and other plants, and so reaches the yet higher and 

 more abstract generalization, 'All living things die.' " 



Of course there may be a child here and there who 

 proceeds, or, in the absence of all instruction in the 

 matter, might proceed, thus. But children and unedu- 

 cated persons very rarely reach a general and universal 

 concept, properly so called. The child notes that its 

 pets and other animals die or are killed : this begets a 

 stronger and stronger expectation that other animals will 

 likewise die or be killed some day ; and the expectation 

 mao' rise to practical certainty without anything like a 

 universal concept taking even vague and indefinite shape 

 in the mind. We therefore question the statement that 

 " by induction the child reaches a large number of 

 general or universal judgments," though it is unquestion- 

 able that he may have a large number of expectations 

 which the logician may cast in universal form. He may 

 even state them in universal form himself, and say, 

 " Animals die," " Apples have pips," the language he 

 uses being here, as in so many cases, in advance of his 

 conceptions. 



In the discussion of the development of the moral 

 sentiment, the distinctively moral feeling is perhaps 



H 



